


Until Mark

by deaddoh



Series: Pocket Universes [10]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Inspired By Until Gwen (Short Story), M/M, Past Character Death, Prison, slight gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:21:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21689014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deaddoh/pseuds/deaddoh
Summary: Jack's release from prison isn't what he was hoping for. But no matter, there's work to be done.Jack "wishes to the high heavens that Mark told him who he was."
Relationships: Mark Fischbach/Sean McLoughlin
Series: Pocket Universes [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1428589
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Until Mark

**Author's Note:**

> this is inspired by the short story 'Until Gwen' by Dennis Lehane. i HIGHLY recommend reading that before reading this!!!

Jack steps out of the door as the guards close the door behind him. He sees his father standing in the lobby, reading a car magazine as he sips from a travel cup. The ex-convict walks to his father and the other looks up, giving the newly released son a smile that reminds Jack of a venus fly trap’s teeth.

“‘Bout time.” He gruffy says, patting Jack’s back harshly. He drops the magazine and the two walk out into the surprisingly sunny weather.

“Excited?” Jack’s father looks at him through the rearview mirror, his eyebrow quirked up. Jack’s father is a man with many names and an ever changing market, he’s an expert con-man. 

The ex-convict simply nods and turns to look out the window. 

The jail looks like some movie scene, aged with old graffiti and barbed wire. It feels just how it looks, cold, even in the warm sun. Jack frowns at the disappearing building.

Jack stares at the distorted polaroid, the man’s face indiscernible in the charred picture. The man is standing in a garden with a mug clasped in his hands. Jack knows from his memory that the man has his eyes closed with a small and happy smile. He hears his father walking around their shitty apartment, heels heavy on the floor.

“Seán,” his father calls.

Jack frowns and tucks the polaroid into his pocket.

“We’re here.” Jack’s father says as the two pull up to a house. Jack sees a family playing in the yard, a little girl running with a dog with a man and woman eyeing the strange car with worried eyes. Jack presses his lips together.

“Oh would you look at that!” Jack sees Mark pointing to a small frog in the pond. Jack smiles and walks up to the pond’s edge, standing next to Mark. The frog itself is nothing amazing, no dazzling colors, interesting patterns, nor a cool croak. But Jack still smiles at the uninspiring frog because Mark is smiling at it.

“He’s not here Seán,” his father calls from the truck, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. Jack gives the family a sorry smile as the two pull out of the driveway and back onto the main road. 

“You remember anythin’?” Jack’s father doesn’t light the cigarette, simply keeping it between his lips.

“Not that I can remember.”

“Then think.”

“I am thinking.”

The car is silent for a while, hearing other cars zoom past and the low hum of the asphalt below the tires.

“So you don’t remember.”

“Basically.”

“Well,” Jack’s father lights the cigarette and inhales deeply. “You did have a bullet in you head.”

“Two.”

The ex-convict’s father huffs but doesn’t continue.

Jack watches with crescent-moon eyes as Mark rolls the car window down and lets his hair get tangled in the wind, despite the sounds of sirens screaming behind them. The first shot rings out, shattering the back window with a flare of broken glass. Jack can feel the glass pieces fall into the back of his shirt while in his head is the blooming of something painful, Mark going, “Fuck, fuck what happened?”

The son pulls Mark’s arm, bringing the steering wheel with it. Hitting the barrier with no concern as Jack pulls Mark, his Mark, out of the back door and running, jumping over the mangled barrier and into the woods. When the second shot rang out the two kept running. Jack ran, not caring about the blood flooding down his face or the feeling of his head on fire, burning enough that even the wind rushing by couldn’t tamper it.

“You don’t remember nothin’ else?”

“Not ‘till he dropped me off at the hospital.”

The father rolls his eyes and stubs out his cigarette on the outside of his door, dropping the butt into the wind of the moving car. “Dumb fuckin’ move.”

Jack huffs, “You’re telling me that you haven’t even talked to Mark?”

“Three years is a long time, that guy’s gone.”

Jack knows Mark-loves his Mark. It still hurts his heart to know. He remembers Mark all happy, in his car, Mark in the forest. He remembers them in Mark’s bed, all quiet and content. A bead of sweat dripping off Mark’s nose and onto Jack’s shoulder.

“It’s with him.”

“Nah,” Jack’s old man grumbles. The ex-convict can hear the leather on the steering wheel squeak, his father’s white knuckle grip. “You called me from the hospital’s phone. Said, ‘I hid it, it’s safe. Only I know.’”

“Shit, I said all that?” 

The old man nods, his grip loosening. “Sure did, by then the cops were pullin’ up. Lotsa shoutin’.”

Jack sees a low brick building suddenly standing in from of him. The old man steps out of the car and Jack follows, he frowns at the door seeing the cracked glass and fading decal. He walks in and the old man flicks on the lights and Jack takes note of all of the papers and envelopes on the floor. The ex-convict sees his old man’s arms full of mail, a folding knife between his teeth.

The son turns and walks back out and across the street to the hardware store. He buys an energy bar, a couple of tubes of super glue, and a shovel. He stops by the car briefly and walks back into the brick building.

“What’re you selling now?”

Jack picks up an envelope and skims over the letter before dropping it back to the ground. 

The old man shrugs, “Does it matter?” 

He’s dumped the envelopes from his arms and onto a desk in the back of the room and has gone through half of them, simply opening them, taking the check out and dropping the envelope back onto the ground without even glancing at the letter.

“How much have you made?”

The con-man shrugs, but Jack knows that the old man knows exactly how much he’s made.

“I’ve done good, but it’s time to up ‘n leave. Been here for six months, far too long.” He shuffles the checks into a neat stack and picks them up, “I’ve gotta deposite these.”

“Six months? What for?”

“Gotta prep a proper welcome back.”

Jack huffs and the room goes quiet. The cracked glass from the door is more-or-less the only light in the room, the long spider web cracks cast shadows that soften out the farther from the door the ex-convict looks. The old man frowns then returns to a neutral expression.

Jack’s mother died when he was a kid, just turned ten. Sometimes he can see little bits of her, a smile, a soft tune wafting through the air and in Jack’s head, a loud bursting laugh. Sometimes she appears as a whole being.

The ex-convict once asked the old man why he had no pictures of her, why not even just a shitty one?

He replied all snarky and tight lipped, “Do you think it’d bring her back? God, wouldn’t that be amazin’.”

Jack had made an indication for the old man to quit it, but he just kept rambling.

“Maybe if we had a whole album she would just,” his eyes alight briefly before returning to their cold snake-like glaze, “pop back into existence.”

Now that Jack had been in prison, he’d been documented, but even then the police had to go off what he said he was. The ex-convict had no birth certificate, never had a job. He was just a blank slate.

Mark was almost proud that Jack was blank, “You can be anyone you want. You can decide for yourself and no one can tell you otherwise.” Mark smiled so widely that Jack couldn’t help but smile too, “You’re beautiful.”

With Mark that was alright, if he told you who you were then you were exactly that. Jack was happy to not be defined by his father or any material ID. Just as long as Mark could live with it, then Jack could too.

Jack sees himself at the abandoned farm, its purpose long forgotten with crumbling silos and creaking barns. That night he met Mark, and finally, like Jack was holding his breath all his life, he could exhale and breathe.

What few people know outside of the poe-dunk town, there was once an amazing diamond find despite how far away any actual diamond mine or vain was. It wasn’t ever confirmed, but a plane carrying West African diamonds crashed. Gem collectors and government officials flooded the area and reclaimed every diamond, but still the rumors persisted.

A woman, Mary Lan, found a diamond, size of a two watch faces put side-to-side. Suddenly she was the talk of the town, speaking to family and friends, ordering drinks and having a great time. Mary Lan was a kindly woman who had a temper that would go up in flames at any moment. She had the eyes of a nervous animal, darting and quick.

Jack and Mark threw darts with her at one point, watching her jittery fingers buckle at the last moment causing the dart to fly away from the board, ending with the sharp sound of the end piercing the wall.

“Poor Mary.” Mark said as she excused herself to get another drink.

Jack snickers, “Not poor anymore.”

Mark looks back at Jack with a smile and shining eyes, something reflecting in them. Maybe from the yellow bulb above them. Mark leaned in to kiss Jack, the other tasting the warmth of the whiskey on Mark’s tongue. 

“The old forest lot maybe?” The two leave the low brick building with a cracked door and a fading decal. “You always did have a fondness for there.”

The old man steps into the car and Jack follows, hating seeing himself in the old man’s eyes. Hating how different they are from Mark’s.

“You still mad I killed the old lady?” The old man suddenly has a cigarette in his mouth and a lighter in his grip.

“Mary. And she wasn’t old.”

Mary wasn’t too quick, despite what her nervous eyes might’ve suggested. After spending a whole afternoon in her home rummaging through her things and even going so far as to remove a section of wall by the TV in the living room did Mark finally suggest something.

“Where’s her father?”

Mary’s father was withering away in a care home, slowly thinning and wilting. Getting there took some planning and a couple costumes.

After Mark shot the father up with something that made his eyes droop and head loll the two got to removing the far wall. The wall opened up to a damp looking entrance, where Mary Lan gave a small puzzled look at Mark and Jack before disappearing. Jack looked to the rock in Mark’s palm and snatched it, burying it deep into his pocket.

“Was that-” 

Mary returned with a cold look in her eye, the only aggressive thing Jack had ever seen the nervous woman do. She stuck out a revolver, a six chamber. She shot three times, two going into the far wall and one into her father’s chest. The man made a sound of pain despite being drugged and dead to the world just five minutes ago.

“You just shot my father.” Mary said before dropping the gun and dashing over to the man in the bed.

“What? _You,_ just shot your father. Who had the damn gun?!”

Mary shakes her head, eyes focused solely on her father. 

Mark and Jack ran from the room and out the back door.

“Shit we shot an old guy.” Jack said as they jumped into the car and began driving off.

Mark shakes his head, “No we didn’t. Mary did.”

“But that’s how it’ll look. It’ll look like we shot her dying father. Shit.” Jack could hear himself getting a bit hysterical, voice pitching up.

Mark looks to Jack and makes the same sound of pain the old man made.

“Fuck Mark, not now.” Jack tried, but laugher seemed to bubble up from nowhere.

“I can’t help it Jack, God.” Mark laughed, a wild sound that freed Jack’s heart just a little more.

There it was, Mark said Jack’s name and he collected one of the many breaths he felt like he missed out on before meeting Mark. Jack loved hearing Mark say his nickname he gave him.

Sirens wailed from behind, washing the car in red and blue. Mark’s face was so close and Jack couldn’t help but to admire it. His hair was whipping around in the wind that suddenly poured through both the open driver’s window and the shattered rear windshield. He saw Mark laughing from all the guilt and all the things not funny about the situation they were in. And suddenly there was a warmth, a hot burning feeling in the back of his head.

The forest lot is empty as ever. It used to be a parking lot but was abandoned, letting nature reclaim in for herself. The trees rustle and Jack can’t help but to feel the old man’s eyes on him.

“I’m kinda remembering.”

The old man nods and the two walk farther into the parking lot.

“I held it, you know?”

“I can figure that out.” The old man huffs and Jack knows his time is ending. He knows the old man brought him here to kill him. Maybe his whole life he’s known the old man would come, pick Jack up from prison and kill him.

“It was big, you know?”

“I can picture it.”

Jack knows he’s only delaying.

“I suppose you’re running out of patience.” Jack turns to face the old man. The old man who suddenly has a gun tapping an unheard rhythm to the side of his hip.

“You’re right. I never really was good at keeping it.” 

“I told Mark to run. Run away and trust no one. Told him you’d keep chasing, chasing like a wild animal with nothing else to give.”

The old man nods, and pulls a cigarette out. He places it between his lips and hums. 

“I realized that four years is a long while. Long time to plan.”

The old man continues, “You knew Mark was gone, for what? Three years?”

The con-man looks at Jack then the gun, “Is this gonna shoot?”

Jack shakes his head.

The other rattles the gun, “It’s heavy.”

“Well try.”

The old man readies the gun, tries the slide and pulls the trigger, but nothing happens.

“I filled the damn thing with super glue.”

The ex-convict pulls out the knife from the hardware store and flips it between his fingers. The old man knows Jack is good with a knife, he’s seen the son win money that way.

“You’re digging him out.”

The old man nods, “Don’t got a shovel.”

“Bought you one. But you’re gonna be digging with you hands.”

“Well shit.” The old man says in a more-or-less defeated tone. Fingers bloodied and fingernails long ripped away. Where his fingernails used to be are now bloody nubs, skin ripped away for the layer underneath to be bloodied too, leaving a mess.

Jack let him use the shovel for the last while, watching the old man dig the shovel’s end into the dirt and toss the dirt above the hole. 

Where there’s a solid sound below the shovel Jack grimaces. “Stop.”

The old man tosses the shovel up then claws himself out, Jack watching bloody fingers crook to get a hold of the dirt. He finally looks away when the old man stands beside the hole, seeing Mark like this hurts. Jack feels like he’s lost the ability to breathe, just like before he met Mark.

Mark’s shirt is missing and bones are exposed in a couple of places, looking like a body on one of those true crime shows.

“Where’s his shirt?”

“Burned it.”

“Why?”

The old man doesn’t reply and Jack doesn’t prompt again. He looks away from Mark but can’t help it when his gaze returns to Mark’s body.

“Look where his stomach used to be.”

The old man waddles forward and looks down into the hole, tilting his head slightly. There’s a moment of pause, quiet. Only the rustling of trees and the quiets songs of birds can be heard. 

“Fuck.” The old man says with a slight chuckle.

Before the old man can continue Jack swings the shovel and knocks the old man in the head.

“Wait-”

Jack swings again and again, seeing the scar on Mark’s stomach. Seeing Mark’s smile. Hearing him laugh, loud and happy. Mark’s golden-brown eyes stare back at Jack as he swings the final time into the old man’s head.

The ex-convict sits on the edge of the hole, one knee propping up his face while the other leg hangs in the hole. He sees Mark’s decomposing body lying under the old man’s and wishes to the high heavens that Mark told him who he was. Who Jack was to Mark. Whatever he was is now buried. Buried under the guilt of not having a better picture of Mark and the dirt Jack throws back into the grave.


End file.
